DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49517#0679
HISTORICAL REVIEW
555
harbors of the Red Sea offered a door of entry. As a matter of fact, even in modern times,
the Sudan has always been overcome from Egypt by way of Dongola Province, and in
ancient times Dongola Province formed the seat of the power which held the Sudan, until
in the Meroitic Period the kingdom was extended considerably to the south. The viceroys
of Ethiopia of the New Kingdom, during a period of four hundred and fifty years, were
called “the princes of Kash,” which is nearly synonymous with Dongola Province. In the
Libyan period, the Temehuw chiefs who founded the Ethiopian kingdom and conquered
Egypt, began by gaining control of Dongola Province. The capital which they established
at Napata, which under another name is now the modern administrative center of Dongola
Province, remained the political capital of Ethiopia for three or four centuries, and the
religious center for seven or eight centuries. In the Middle Kingdom, the object of the
long fortified road from Assuan to Kerma was to gain contact with the markets and the
trading caravans of the southland, and Inebuw-Amenemhat was planted at the end of this
road, beyond the serious molestation of the blackmailing desert tribes of Lower Nubia and
its hinterlands, on the borders of a region whose population partook of the direct benefits
of the traffic.
The garrisons of the fortified posts protecting the southern trade route, and the settle-
ment at Kerma actually engaged in maintaining trading relations or the collecting of trib-
ute, were necessarily Egyptian; but the poverty-stricken wadys of Ethiopia held nothing
which offered to Egyptian industry any rewards comparable to those of the black valley
of the north. Yet the little Mor-fans of alluvium at the mouths of the wadys, and the wet
banks of the falling Nile, afforded opportunities for the cultivation of grain and trees, and
for pasturage which contrasted favorably with the steppes of the eastern desert or the oases
of the western. With the placing of the forts along the river, moreover, the security of life
and property in the riparian region of Lower Nubia must have been immeasurably in-
creased over previous times and over the conditions in the hinterlands. During Dynasties
V and VI, Lower Nubia had become a sort of No-Man’s-Land, and by the beginning of
Dynasty XII, its population had been reduced to mere remnants of the old Nubian tribes
(Nubian B-group), as was shown during the Nubian Archaeological Survey. In this de-
populated district, after security had been established by the forts of Dynasty XII, the
Nubian C-group people appear, and are found to have occupied practically every available
foot of cultivable land. Considering the natural conditions of the country and the popula-
tions of other times, the C-group people were numerous and prosperous, and developed to
a high degree the simple industries of men of their primitive state of civilization.
The C-group people were not found at Kerma. But some of the pottery found there in
the late Nubian graves was identical with C-group pottery, and the Nubian cemeteries of
Kerma were clearly contemporaneous in large part with the C-group cemeteries of Lower
Nubia. It is clear that the Nubian population, in the midst of which the Egyptian colony
of Inebuw-Amenemhat had been planted, was not the same as the C-group people. Al-
though both these Nubian populations may have had a common origin, I am inclined to
believe with Oric Bates that the C-group people were chiefly a desert tribe, probably Lib-
yans who had pushed into Lower Nubia at this time, while the Nubians of Dongola Province
represented an older population, settled in the valley from the time of the Old Kingdom or
earlier. It must be remembered that none of these inhabitants of Ethiopia, as far as their
skeletons have been discovered, were as a race true negroes, although individual negroes
555
harbors of the Red Sea offered a door of entry. As a matter of fact, even in modern times,
the Sudan has always been overcome from Egypt by way of Dongola Province, and in
ancient times Dongola Province formed the seat of the power which held the Sudan, until
in the Meroitic Period the kingdom was extended considerably to the south. The viceroys
of Ethiopia of the New Kingdom, during a period of four hundred and fifty years, were
called “the princes of Kash,” which is nearly synonymous with Dongola Province. In the
Libyan period, the Temehuw chiefs who founded the Ethiopian kingdom and conquered
Egypt, began by gaining control of Dongola Province. The capital which they established
at Napata, which under another name is now the modern administrative center of Dongola
Province, remained the political capital of Ethiopia for three or four centuries, and the
religious center for seven or eight centuries. In the Middle Kingdom, the object of the
long fortified road from Assuan to Kerma was to gain contact with the markets and the
trading caravans of the southland, and Inebuw-Amenemhat was planted at the end of this
road, beyond the serious molestation of the blackmailing desert tribes of Lower Nubia and
its hinterlands, on the borders of a region whose population partook of the direct benefits
of the traffic.
The garrisons of the fortified posts protecting the southern trade route, and the settle-
ment at Kerma actually engaged in maintaining trading relations or the collecting of trib-
ute, were necessarily Egyptian; but the poverty-stricken wadys of Ethiopia held nothing
which offered to Egyptian industry any rewards comparable to those of the black valley
of the north. Yet the little Mor-fans of alluvium at the mouths of the wadys, and the wet
banks of the falling Nile, afforded opportunities for the cultivation of grain and trees, and
for pasturage which contrasted favorably with the steppes of the eastern desert or the oases
of the western. With the placing of the forts along the river, moreover, the security of life
and property in the riparian region of Lower Nubia must have been immeasurably in-
creased over previous times and over the conditions in the hinterlands. During Dynasties
V and VI, Lower Nubia had become a sort of No-Man’s-Land, and by the beginning of
Dynasty XII, its population had been reduced to mere remnants of the old Nubian tribes
(Nubian B-group), as was shown during the Nubian Archaeological Survey. In this de-
populated district, after security had been established by the forts of Dynasty XII, the
Nubian C-group people appear, and are found to have occupied practically every available
foot of cultivable land. Considering the natural conditions of the country and the popula-
tions of other times, the C-group people were numerous and prosperous, and developed to
a high degree the simple industries of men of their primitive state of civilization.
The C-group people were not found at Kerma. But some of the pottery found there in
the late Nubian graves was identical with C-group pottery, and the Nubian cemeteries of
Kerma were clearly contemporaneous in large part with the C-group cemeteries of Lower
Nubia. It is clear that the Nubian population, in the midst of which the Egyptian colony
of Inebuw-Amenemhat had been planted, was not the same as the C-group people. Al-
though both these Nubian populations may have had a common origin, I am inclined to
believe with Oric Bates that the C-group people were chiefly a desert tribe, probably Lib-
yans who had pushed into Lower Nubia at this time, while the Nubians of Dongola Province
represented an older population, settled in the valley from the time of the Old Kingdom or
earlier. It must be remembered that none of these inhabitants of Ethiopia, as far as their
skeletons have been discovered, were as a race true negroes, although individual negroes